Pine

Combat is not particularly challenging, but hard enough to take it out of "casual" territory. Puzzles are similar, although some threw me for a loop. The primary game mechanic appears to be bribery. Collect lots of whatsits and donate them to villages to influence them. Many will find that boring. I found it relaxing. Or to save yourself time, stock up on raid flares, let the other villages war on each other, and then loot the dead. :D
If you're looking for a challenging game, this is not it. But it's pleasant and enjoyable.

Being the most minor, dominant species in the world, which I find an interesting approach, humankind is pushed from its home and forced to find a place in a world filled with horrific monsters and unusual creatures. You play as a young boy who goes out into the world to help his tribe find a new home. The tribes are interesting and unique, each with their own culture, appearance, and preferences that stand out. (I sincerely hope their cultures will be expanded upon in future updates/DLCs!) I love how the tribes look--a very interesting take on the animals/creatures. I love that each tribe uses resources they rely on to craft various things. You will see traders moving between cities, foragers racing you and the other tribes to gather resources, and raiding parties capturing new territory. The world is expansive, gorgeous even with its simple graphics. I LOVE exploring and gathering! And I LOVE that your decisions and actions affect the tribes and the world.
The ONLY CON I personally have for this game is being forced to, often through violence, wipe out tribes to complete a quest. Like, why can't there be an option to just dislike a tribe but not have to be forced to wipe them out to one corner of the world or wipe them out of existence? I greatly love the idea of working with all the tribes and uniting in certain events, and that option should continue to exist in this game, but some tribes are just...butts. Ha, ha! And I intentionally don't want to support them. But I don't want to be forced to destroy a species for short-term human gain! This forced aspect that stood out to me puts all the hard work I placed in raising and growing one tribe (or two tribes) to waste because I am forced to appease the enemy tribes. It is annoying losing all that progress just to finish a quest or two...
Lastly, the combat is simple. It is challenging but not impossible if you're not too great at fighting. I don't mind the combat, although I will admit it could use improvement (it can sometimes be silly, janky, or slow). I use an Xbox wireless controller. There's room for improvement there. This game is fun, gorgeous, immersive, fascinating! I love it. I have enjoyed my time in it so far, and I'm not even finished with the game yet. There is SO MUCH POTENTIAL in this game! :D I hope it thrives. I want to see this world and the tribes thrive and grow. So, I am looking forward to updates/DLCs, expansions to the tribes, cultures, stories, the world... It'll be a joy to watch this fictional world grow. For me, this was a hidden gem, and I am glad I found it! Try it!

So this game may not be the best graphically or mechanically, but this game still surprises you. I beat the game and most collectibles at 21 hours so its got some solid content and a story that is actually enticing. I read the reviews for this game before purchasing and was almost turned away from the negative comments, but after beating it i realized the comments by kittokin and oflegends are more than likely just comments by people who suck at the game, or maybe tried a game outside of their player zone. Kinda like when a wannabe Michelin star food critic (yelpers) try to review taco bells new burrito. This game has an interesting art style, a story that makes your actually read the dialogue instead of skipping it, and the optional-ish surviver crafter grind that youll enjoy if you like crafters.
Some Pro tips if you buy this game:
-remap the keybinds to your tastes, defaults are weird
-turn look sensitivity wayy down
-never, absolutely never use the lock on mechanic (i didnt like it)
-go to the desert vault first, immensely helpful for finding the orbs for your pouch
-the game length is short if you bumrush the story quests, enjoy the rest of the game a bit
-raiding is only good if you have multiple raid tokens AND you put in effort to help aid your raiders. They will lose if you just spectate
Things i did not like about this game:
-the human elders, theyre just garbage people
-there wasn't a non violent way to get the last vault key
-the game wraps up fast after the third key
TL;DR: this game is great in story and great in artstyle (imo), and most negative reviews are from salty people who suck at the game and is probably advocating for a dark souls easy mode. If you enjoy the game for what it is itll be like receiving a perfect steak quesorito from taco bell when you asked for a beefy five

Overall loved the game. While there were points that were frustrating and required some creative solutions, it was totally worth it to keep playing. The only part that I genuinely was disappointed with was the story line. It was a great story! I liked how as the game progressed you gained more parts of the story, but when I finished I felt like there were some significant gaps in the story. I was also a little disappointed that I couldn't become friendly with multiple tribes at the same time, and the lack of side quests was a let down. Overall, the beauty of the graphics, music that enhanced the experience, and what little story I did have, I loved and am quite hopeful there may be some updates to further the game - story, glitches, side quests, etc.

Forget all the haters! This is a really fun and enjoyable game. As soon as you learn your way around the factions in the game its really fun and nicely made!

I found Pine to be a thoroughly enjoyable game. It has a look and feel reminiscent of Zelda games while still offering unique game play. That's especially impressive considering it was made by an extremely small team. I loved how this world was living and changing as the factions in the game competed for territory and resources, and it would be great to see that concept incorporated into other games and expanded upon. It's not that often I come across a game that I'm completely satisfied with while at the same time making me dream of how much more it could have been with a bigger team and budget.
I encountered a few minor technical issues, which were easily solved by loading the game with no great loss (thanks to frequent auto-saves). The dialogue could also use a bit of cleaning-up - at first, I thought that it was written with heavy thesaurus use to feel like this was an interesting way of speaking unique to this fantasy world, but when more modern slang appeared I began to think it was caused by translation. In terms of the game mechanics, I felt that the game would benefit from methods for sorting inventory, equipment, and crafting recipes.

Big breath of the wild vibes. Good progression and decent conclusion. I loved the gathering system and that resources are also gathered by npcs. I only found 5 bugs which is low and kind of impressive for a small team. I'm the picky type and can conclude this game is "good".